Megastructures & Kardashev Scale

A new expansion that adds Megastructures to the game; including:

1. Dyson Spheres [Both fully enclosing a star or encircling it with a dyson swarm of solar gathering satellites]
2. Space Ports
3. Matrioshka Brain
4. Shkadov Thruster [Stellar engine]
5. Alderson Disk
6. O’Neill Cylinder
7. Space Elevators
8. Ringworlds
9. Black Hole Powerplant [harnesses power from the turbulance of a black hole's accretion disk]

Game implementation of each megastructure:

1. Dyson Sphere's can be used to supply a massive amount of the industrial resource however they also reduce the amount of food that can be produced on the planets within a system where they are built due to cutting off sunlight (more so with the fully enclosed variant).
2. Space Ports can could serve various functions. Mobile repair and production stations. They can also be used as deep space asteroid mining platforms.
3. Matrioshka Brain would tie into the hacking feature by harnessing a whole stars energy to produce a massive super computer that could greatly increase hacking capability. It could also provide an intelligence on other empires assets and also provide a new combat card that improves accuracy due to the super computers greater ability at calculating firing solutions. Like with the dyson sphere the Matrioshka brain would cut off the stars energy to planets in the system.
4. Shkadov Thrusters use a stars energy as an engine that can move whole solar systems around the galaxy. Thus, a solar system could be moved to safety from an enemy or alternatively it could be used to colonise far flung areas of the galaxy in regions detached from ones own empire. They could also be used to launch an attack into an enemies region of the galaxy, providing a base of operations.
5. Alderson Disks could be constructed around solar systems that lack planets so that the stars energy can still be used to form a colony.
6. O’Neill Cylinder has a similar function to the Alderson Disks but can be constructed within solar systems that already have planets to increase that systems production, population, farming etcetera.
7. Space Elevators could be constructed on colonised planets and be visible from the galaxy view of the game. These elevators would increase the speed/amount of ship repairs, trade and possibly some other bonuses.
8. Ringworlds could increase population and production but also provide an orbital defense for a planet against invasion. Potentially an invader would have to first combat the orbital defence ringworld before a land invasion can commence.
9. Black Hole Powerplants would allow an empire to harness the power of a blackholes turbulant accretion disk.
10. Artificial planets that can be built in systems with a powerful enough star and no or few existing planets.

Note: Instead of sacrificing ones planets to a dyson spheres harnessing of a stars power it could be possible to build habitats within/upon the dyson sphere (shell worlds) instead so although the planets would no long be colonizable the dyson sphere would become a new colossul colony at the solar systems center. Which would act like a colony planet and could be invaded.

Khardashev Scale: A new empire statistic and victory condition:

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

'The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy a civilization is able to use. It was proposed by Soviet Stronomer Nikolai Kardashev in 1964. The scale has three designated categories:

• A Type I civilization—also called a planetary civilisation—can use and store all of the energy available on its planet.
• A Type II civilization—also called a stellar civilization—can harness the total energy of its planet's parent star (the most popular hypothetical concept being the Dyson sphere—a device which would encompass the entire star and transfer its energy to the planet(s)).
• A Type III civilization—also called a galactic civilization—can control energy on the scale of its entire host galaxy.'

With the megastructures expansion every empire would have a khardashev rating based on the amount of available energy within the galaxy it personally consumes/utilises. This would be given as a percentage. It would also be noted whether they have achieved the respective requirements of type 1, 2 and 3 (which would require total supremacy of the galaxy). This could also provide a new victory condition such as "Harness 75% of the galaxies total potential energy output."

P.S. I would also like to suggest the possibility of implementing a boarding mechanic for ships and starports in combat.

Thank you for considering these ideas! :D